Chapter One...

“Whaaaack” The handle of the rake came swift and hard across the back of my legs. I am a little embarrassed to say this is one of the things I remember best about my dad. Yeah, he had a real bad temper. I never knew why or when it would come. It would just boil up like a storm on a summer day. The swiftness and the randomness of the triggering events were always hard for a son to understand. I was just a goofy little kid who wanted to be loved and make my dad proud of whatever thing I tried to do to please him. There was just no pleasing him, though. I tried to pretend it was my fault and that way I could least share some of the responsibility for my assorted punishments. But, even that gets old especially as you get older and start to be able to figure things out a little better. There is a lot of cause and effect in operation when you are a kid. You aren’t able to discern the intricacies of how a mind works and what could be the unspoken cause to get the back of your dads hand across your face. That’s probably the way God planned it so we wouldn’t entirely give up on our parents being able to love and protect us. We always came back for more, unfailingly and unflinching and just hoping. Our hope turns into stubborn determination as we get older and we believe that we can change them. We believe if we could find this elusive thing, just out of our reach, then we would be loved. So here begins the original faulty paradigm that I will operate out of for many years to come and that gives way to the paradox that becomes my life. That paradox, in a nutshell, is I have always been searching for something or someone external to ourselves for our sense of worth and happiness. This is such a primal lesson learned and we receive it in many different ways. Some of us are molested, devalued, dehumanized and abused in so many different ways. Where the conflict comes in, at such a basic level, is that someone who loves me is supposed to take care of me and nurture me and not violate my trust to do that. I guess I finally decided, after many years, some people just don’t have the capacity for that no matter how hard we wish or hope or pray.